CHAPTER 16
Waking from his slumber, Corbin decided it was time to find his brother’s trail again. Lady Cassandra had not had much opportunity to train him in the use of the psionic arts, but what little time they did have was spent focusing on his core skill. Eager to learn, he had worked straight through the night. He was exhausted by the time he met Elise at the Pale Gates and had no time to rest when he first left Fal.
Outside the wall, Corbin did not need to rely on telepathic tricks to find his brother’s trail. For that, he required only a short run to the area where Logan had last been spotted, where he easily found the site where the city watchmen had shot at his brother. The soil was scorched in black splotches where the soldiers had missed him.
Logan’s flight from Fal was easy enough to track, as he did not seem to be bothered with covering up his tracks. This did not surprise Corbin in the least. His older brother had always been brash and cocky. Then again, he probably assumed no one would bother chasing after him into the wilds. Following the boot marks, broken twigs, and bent plants for some time, Corbin finally came to a small ethereal pond, where he completely lost the trail.
This was as good a place as any for him to rest, so he climbed up a nearby tree trunk and strapped his leather belt around both his wrist and a nearby branch. That way if he began slipping while resting, he would be tugged awake.
A couple hours passed, and the rest had done him well. Now it was time to get on the move again, to close the distance Logan might have gained with his two-day head start.
Balancing with the arches of his feet on separate branches and stretching out his back without moving them, Corbin gave a light push down, followed by another, finally springing from the limber branches high into the air and spinning into a backward somersault to land gingerly on his toes in the tall grass below.
For some reason, Logan’s trail had gone cold after stopping at this pond. All physical evidence of his movements ended abruptly after he lay in the grass by Corbin’s feet.
Touching the Svalin on his ear, Corbin tried to fall into himself, as Lady Cassandra had taught him the night before. It was not unlike the meditation his sensei, Rimball, had spent years mentoring him in, yet with a heightened sense of awareness to the world around. Sometimes when Corbin fell into a deep meditation, one that he drifted in for hours, it was as if his physical body were distant, removed from his physical being.
This was something other than that. It was more like his corporeal form was a tuning fork, sensitive to the psychic energy radiating from the world around, the aether. Probing in the darkness for a point of light that revealed some sentient semblance of a living creature, the energy rippled over the landscape in waves. Lady Cassandra compared it to the way a bat sent out sounds, hearing them bounce off objects to tell it where to go. She said that would be a good way for him to begin, being a novice in the skills of psionicism.
“Watch out!”
The words jolted Corbin to his core, as if someone had just shocked his nerves with energy. Acting on instinct alone, he threw his body into a defensive crouch, rolling in a sideways spin and springing to his feet with his polearm waving in front of his body to block the unknown threat.
If he had not moved with such alacrity, the massive cait that pounced the spot where he had been would surely have killed him with ease. Instead, its muzzle snapped at air.
Corbin used his momentary advantage to stab the monstrous, smooth-skinned feline hard in its flank.
The voulge was much heavier than the weapons he was used to wielding. Lady Cassandra had gifted it to him, saying that fighting in the wilds with a spear was akin to suicide. “You’ll need a nice solid piece of Falian steel in your hands to survive out there,” she had said. The weapon was made up of a solid steel shaft the length of his body, with a long curved blade at the top. Being unaccustomed to the weight of the new weapon resulted in his strike being no more than a flesh wound.
His upper hand was gone, and the cait roared its defiance, baring razor sharp tusks that dripped with saliva and double rows of matching incisors that ran all the way to the back of the predator’s jaw. Its muscular body tensed, and talons lashed out fiercely for his midsection.
Corbin used the voulge as a pole vault, bringing his body recklessly close to the curved blade on his way up, and another backflip took him out of reach. No sooner did his toes touch the ground than the beast moved in again for another slash, but this time he was prepared, deftly dodging on the balls of his feet to the side and jabbing in to sting the back of the monster’s paw.
Without waiting for it to retaliate, he raced away. The cait quickly moved to pursue, lashing out as it ran after him, coming dangerously close to nipping his calves. Corbin pushed himself even harder, knowing that to slow for even a fraction of a second could mean his death.
Lured into his trap, the cait slammed hard into the trunk of the tree that Corbin ran straight up. He flipped onto the beast’s back and straddled it like a horse. From this vantage point, he meant to dig the voulge down deep into the monster’s neck.
“Behind you!”
This time the warning came with a flickering image in his mind’s eye of the monster’s tentacle-like tail stinging him. Understanding Baetylus’ warning, Corbin spun around, still straddling the beast, as it quickly adapted to having a rider. In an angry frenzy from being duped by its prey again, the cait whipped twin tails at his head. He blocked the oncoming assault with his weapon, weaving left then right.
The cait bucked hard to throw him off its back, but Corbin’s legs gripped it like a vice. Again the tentacles came in for a sting, this time changing tactics to grab for his weapon, wrapping around the voulge and yanking back hard. Corbin did not let go of his weapon, as he knew to do so would mean game over, and instead used the momentum to throw himself into the air. Letting go with one hand, he flicked open the wrist blade Fafnir had given him and tore right through the stinging tails, sheering them both clean off the beast’s body.
How it howled then, with bright green blood gushing out of the gaping wounds. Out of its mind in pain, the feral beast fell on its back, desperately rubbing against the dirt as if it could somehow wipe away the pain.
Standing firmly where he had landed, Corbin hurled the voulge like a javelin. The blade dug deeply into the creature’s exposed belly, where it tore a hole large enough for the monster’s insides to spill out across the soil. The cait howled for its sisters, letting off an agonizing death rattle.
Confident that the stalking predator was slain, Corbin bent down to hold his knees and catch his breath. Adrenaline was still coursing through his body, leaving him shaky and anxious from the deadly encounter. Falling to his knees, Corbin gave a prayer of thanks to his god for warning him of the danger.
“The wilds are a dangerous land, my son,” Baetylus said in his mind, his voice as strong and clear as if the words had been spoken aloud. “To survive out here you must remain ever vigilant. There is much yet to be done.”
“Blessed All-Father, your gifts are many,” Corbin intoned, feeling the Great Crystal’s presence slipping away, leaving him alone, cold and sweating in the dirt.
Opening his eyes, Corbin could see a faint wisp of blue smoke rising from the outcropping of trees past the radiant pool of water. Baetylus was giving him yet another gift, pointing him in the direction of his wayward brother.
Quickly retrieving his weapon, Corbin searched the area and found there were indeed tracks around the trees to follow, but they were not Logan’s. They were too light for his brother and the gait was wider. Someone had come through here recently, maybe not Logan, but someone the All-Father wanted him to find just the same.
He followed them. The tracks were sure, straight and true; this man had known exactly where he was going. Soon Corbin crossed the chasm, using the makeshift log bridge. He caught the scent of burning wood on the breeze, so coming around the bend to find a camp was not surprising.
Three men were going about their b
usiness, one of them stripping the meat off a cait that hung to the side of his tent. The other was working to tie bandages around his companion’s arm, while he himself wore stripped rags wrapped tightly about a bloody stump that used to be a leg. The whole lot of them were in rough shape, brusied, battered, and stitched up as if they had been to Hel and back.
“Ho there,” Corbin announced himself, stepping into the camp with arms raised so as to not frighten the wounded men.
The largest of them stopped his work butchering the cait, switching to a defensive posture with a dagger in hand.
“Rest easy, wilders, I mean you no harm,” Corbin said firmly.
“Ah, a guest!” Maxwell invited him into the camp with all the usual rigmarole, seating him by the fire.
He explained how the camp had been ambushed by two caits, one of them taking his foot for a snack. Corbin offered his assistance, tending to Maxwell’s gored appendage with some of the provisions he had brought for the journey.
“Is it normal for them to attack you here in the camp?” Corbin wondered. It did not seem like the men would be able to last long enough to build such a home if monsters like the cait were a common occurrence.
“The wildlands offer many dangers, wanderer. You can never tell just what might happen from day to day,” Maxwell said. He slurred a little as he spoke, slightly deranged from the poppy milk he had been sipping to numb the pain.
Still, it was interesting to Corbin how the man evaded his questions. He noticed some of the wounds looked different than what he would expect from the wild predators. They were the kind of injuries you would expect from hand-to-hand combat, or even a blunt weapon, but certainly not the rending talons of a cait.
“Use your gift,” Baetylus whispered in his mind.
Sitting back beside the fire, Corbin made a show of rubbing his hands to warm them as he slipped into the psionic plane. He stared deep into the embers, relishing in the warmth dancing over his skin.
Focusing his concentration, his mind probed Wart, who had taken over the work of gutting the captured cait. Corbin circled around the man’s psyche, searching for an opening. Dipping into the swirling thoughts, he caught a glimpse of the cait attack on the camp, followed by Bruno charging in to save his leader. A myriad of visions floated in the fog of the man’s recent thoughts, before one starkly demanded his attention. It was an image of Logan fighting these men!
Corbin instantly recoiled, loosening his grip on the man’s thoughts. Maxwell noticed the flinch and sat up, nodding to Bruno, who was stalking behind him.
“What troubles you, friend?” Maxwell asked. “You look like ye just seen a ghost then, eh?”
Corbin did not respond, shaking his head before speaking. “Think I nodded off for a second there. It has been a very long day.” A lie followed by a truth.
Maxwell watched him with an excited gleam in his eyes that Corbin had not noticed before. His eyes darted around the camp, taking in the big picture. One of the tables was covered with many things and also stained in blood, and the crates by the side of the main tent were stained red as well. These men were remarkably fed for wilders. He could smell the stink of Bruno edging in close behind him and hear him drawing a long, curved blade.
“True enough,” Maxwell cooed. “It has. You just warm up beside our fire and make yourself at home, wanderer.” Corbin was careful not to betray his suspicion when Maxwell slowly reached for something behind him.
Corbin nodded and smiled back at him then suddenly punched his hand hard into the air behind him, his gauntlet blade flicking like the tongue of a snake, running straight through Bruno’s throat. In the same fluid movement, he spun to stand behind the dead man, using Bruno’s body as a shield against Maxwell’s fired crossbow bolt. Tugging his arm to pull the wrist blade out of Bruno’s throat, he heaved the limp body on top of Maxwell, burying the crippled man under two-hundred pounds of lifeless weight.
Wart came in hard, screaming in a high-pitched snarl, and cutting his skinning knife through the air in wide lunges that Corbin easily danced around. Bringing his voulge across his back, he severed the man’s hand from his body, and before he could even scream in pain, spun back around, cleaving Wart’s boil-covered head with one mighty swipe.
Maxwell had freed himself from under Bruno’s dead weight and was scrambling away from the scene on his hands and knees, toward his tent. Corbin stomped his foot down hard on the man’s back, pinning him in place.
“Argh!” Maxwell howled, wetting himself in the dirt.
“What did you do with my brother, dog?”
“Didn’t do nothing—” Maxwell was cut off by Corbin’s heel grinding deeper, twisting his lies into another scream of agony.
“I know he was here,” Corbin snarled at the disgusting cannibal. “Don’t even try lying to me. Where is my brother? Tell me now!”
“Okay…okay... Just please…just stop. I’ll tell you everything,” Maxwell rasped.
“Now,” Corbin demanded.
“He came here and attacked us in the night. We never even saw him enter the camp. Was a little thievin’ gnome with him, too. Argh… oh please, stop, it’s the god’s truth. We offered him a place to stay and he took ‘vantage of our generosity…”
“Do you even hear yourself?” Corbin asked, truly dumbfounded at the extent of the man’s corruption. “Do you honestly think I would fall for these fabrications?”
“By the Crystal’s light, it’s the honest truth. That’s why we tried to kill ye, could see you were his brother. Ye look just like each other.”
A seed of doubt wriggled in Corbin’s mind. Did he even really know his brother? The All-Father himself had shown him an image of Logan killing the man in New Fal and warned that he was putting the entire kingdom in danger.
Maxwell could feel his growing trepidation. “Yer brother’s an outlaw now. Ye can’t say this is a surprise, eh?”
Corbin slammed the pommel of his polearm down on the man’s spine, shutting him up. Reaching back, he unlatched the Svalin from his earlobe, releasing a tidal wave of thoughts that assaulted his mind. Images fluttered like crows past his psyche.
As he had suspected, these men had killed many victims in the wildlands. They were cannibals who preyed off newly exiled Falians. He saw them try to kill Logan in vain and watched as his brother bested them and escaped to the north with a freed gnome.
Reaching up, he latched the Svalin back in place, warding off the onslaught of psychic energy. Pain lingered as a dull ache against his throbbing forehead.
Maxwell had scurried away from him while he was in the trance and sat propped up beside his tent, aiming a crossbow directly at Corbin’s head.
“Don’t know what kinda demon magic ye trying to pull here, wanderer. I felt you in my head! Recommend it’s time you leave ‘fore I have to put you down.” Maxwell’s hands trembled as Corbin stalked toward him fearlessly. “I’m tellin’ ye, boy, it best be time ye leave well enough alone!” he insisted louder, phlegm frothing from the corner of his dried lips.
Corbin took another step. With a click, the released bolt skimmed past his cheek, grazing it just enough to leave a thin red line. He grimaced at the cannibal leader and buried the head of his voulge deep into the man’s chest.
“May the All-Father have mercy on your sinful soul,” Corbin said, as the light faded from the man’s eyes.
He stood in silence for a while, the night breeze whipping his long hair across his face. His eyes scanned the camp, taking in the carnage he had just unleashed. Corbin had never killed another man, never even imagined himself capable of such a thing. Yet he had dispatched these wretches without a second thought.
The weight of the world, of the past couple weeks…of it all crashed down heavily on his soul.
Weakly falling to his knees, Corbin Walker wept into the night.